Happy Kitten Day 2024

Where are we goin' Mama? (approx Nov 2010)
Looks like Grey Mouse, out on the porch, exploring with mama Patches.

The Ambush.
Grey Mouse, cool grey with more stripes as a kitten, on the footboard of Grandpa's old bed, clearly ready to pounce on a sister below.

 

My darling kittens were born on Sept 7, 2010. Only Grey Mouse is still here with me out of 4 kittens, (Rex, Spot, Lassie, Grey Mouse),  Mama Patches, father Sugar Mouse, and auntie/grandmother Mousie.

In the recent "cooler" weather, Grey Mouse was sleeping again on my shoulder or lap. We had another heat wave, but it is cooling again...
 

I Have Seen Her Ghost a Couple of Times

Rexie is Wild - playing with a toy on the bed - a year old

Written Friday, Aug.18, 2023. Backdated

Well, not that kind of ghost. But something that has never happened to me before.

I have very poor visualization ability, except in dreams, and half asleep. 

You would think that that is a difficulty for a visual artist/designer. But since the days when my designs were colored pencil on graph paper, cross-stitch or quilt or jewelry designs, or costume drawings, the finished project, (however imperfect it was), always looked MUCH better than my imagination could picture.

And now, designs on the computer already look much better than my imagination.

That is different from what I have seen from writers, who say that their finished projects don't match their imaginations.

Another advantage to not having clear visual imagination, is that potentially traumatic events which are processed as stories rather than pictures, are much less likely to produce PTSD. (Temple Grandin)

But, Rexie's ghost?

Well, lying-sitting-up on the bed, half asleep, maybe with my eyes closed, I have seen a Rexie-shape walking up the bed beside me, just like she used to do...

I don't have an illustration for this

There are local demonstrations; I am joining them.

If you are not, you are part of the problem.

If you push back against the phrase "Black Lives Matter", you are part of the problem.

We have all seen this too often.
And no one is held responsible. The killers are usually not even charged. If charged, not convicted.

My heart still hurts for Trayvon Martin. And I am still outraged that his stalker and killer wasn't charged for months, and was acquitted by a racist jury.

 While under the same racist prosecutor,  an abused woman who fired a warning shot into the wall,  to discourage her pursuer, was sent to jail for 30 years.

And Tamir Rice. 12 years old. Holding a TOY gun. In an OPEN CARRY state - in which it is perfectly legal to be showing a real gun. Shot to death within a few seconds of when the cops arrived. And his sister tackled and not allowed to go to him as he lay dying. And no medical assistance called or given. The first call his policeman-murderer made was to his union, to get their help in covering his ass. No punishment.

Hundreds have been murdered since then, mostly by cops. And now Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

Some of the instigators of violence in the demonstrations, and those burning down black-owned businesses, are white supremacists.

If you are only seeing/hearing mainstream media, you are missing important things. If you are only watching/reading/listening to sources from one point of view, you are missing half your mind, like a Trump-cultist.

Statistically, probably not all white cops are racist scum murderers. But too many who may not think of themselves that way are protecting those who are. And their unions are fighting reforms.

This quote from historian Bruce Catton's speech, "The Meaning of the Civil War", given in 1961 near an anniversary of the war, should have been given more publicity, and taught in every school, since then.

"The Civil War was about something. It was fought for something. And— let us never for a moment forget it—it won something. 

Under everything else, the war was about Negro slavery. 

It was fought for freedom—and if ever anything was worth fighting a war for, freedom was and is the cause. The war won freedom—for the slaves, and for the people who owned the slaves, for all of the people in both sections who in one way or another had consented to slavery.

... The Civil War turned the Negro from a chattel slave into an American citizen, and it left us with the eternal and completely inescapable obligation to see to it that the citizenship is made good. There could be no greater absurdity than an attempt to commemorate any Civil War anniversary on a basis which would deprive Negro citizens of the right to attend. 

Unless the Negro can join freely and fully in all national centennial ceremonies, the ceremonies are not worth ten minutes of anybody’s time. 

And that is why the Civil War is worth remembering. 

It gave us a broader freedom, and it laid upon us the obligation to live up to that freedom and to make it unlimited, for everybody. Freedom is indivisible.

Winning it for the Negro, we won it also for all of the people who then were or ever would become Americans—for the man who has fled from oppression, misery and discrimination overseas as well as for the fugitive from the American slave pen and auction block. We can never have, permanently, a second-class citizenship in this country; because of the Civil War, we are no longer that kind of country.

We might just as well stop trying to find a comfortable middle ground between the ideas of Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. There simply isn’t any such place."

Bruce Catton in The Meaning of the Civil War


The modern appearance of white supremacists, KKK, and swastika-bearing real neo-nazis, crawling out of hiding like cockroaches, emboldened, aided and encouraged by trump, is an embrace of the ideas of Hitler.

As is out-of-control police violence against peaceful protestors and reporters. And attacks on reporters by "police-associated white supremacists". (Fairdotorg June 9 2020) 

Definitely time to sew again...

Empire-style dress design drawn for a costume history class in 2016

But not with a patterned fabric used like this batik-style one, although I just made over 2 dozen versions of this design in colorful new incarnations.

I have been falling for wonderful linen fabrics, which come also in the soft greyed colors which are my favorites, as well as brighter colors. And some of my favorite fabric designs go with some of those linen colors.

So, the parts of this picture with the patterns will be solid colors of linen, with a pattern on the front of the bodice.


Maybe one of those 2-Sprig colorings I just made. This version of the design fits more closely together, and has some interesting layouts.

You can see that these textured designs look like embroidery.  So for me, they seem more appropriate for smaller areas like a bodice front.


Time to start making something...

When I was in school the first time, 50 years ago, I used to draw the costume I was going to make during vacation, and prop it up on my desk to look at while I studied for finals. I find this drawing has the same effect. I keep looking at it.
 

Time to Sew Again 2020

My 2-sprig textile design

from part of a copper batik stamp

I am cleaning up my sewing room, and organizing the fabrics I have on hand for the top 20 or so projects I have in mind. (Of which if I get 2 or 3 made, I'll be very happy.) I want to alter/make a couple of patterns, for a linen tank top to replace the one I used for sleeping for many years. And a linen princess-line tunic to go with my favorite multi-color long skirt, which I plan to embellish with card-weaving (time to get back to doing that too) along the seams. And from that a pattern for linen tunics/dresses with a bodice panel from one of my textile design fabrics. Maybe a Viking costume with card-weaving. . .

I have plenty of fabric on hand, linen and my (and Amy Vail's) textiles, a few pre-washed, for the first few projects. Time to get a washing machine again, once it is possible. Linens are beautiful, soft and strong, but definitely need to be pre-washed several times.

Here's another of the Empire/Regency inspired clothing designs I did several years ago for a Costume History/Fashion History class, using textile designs I did for the project.

Empire-inspired dress design
using my textile designs

It will be fun to get back to doing one of my favorite things. Maybe roses next. . .

Campus Is Closed 2020

Library, Sierra College, Nevada County Campus

This picture of the library on campus from across the pond is from several years ago, maybe 2013. It was the semester we lost 3 Thursdays to snow vacation. The picture was taken on Friday, the day after it started snowing quickly during class and campus was closed.

I walked home; it's only 2 miles on the wooded trail, a little farther the way I went along the roads. At class next week, we discovered I had reached home before the professor had gotten out of the parking lot with everyone trying to leave at once.

Last October, we didn't have any storms, no rain although some wind. But we had SIX power outages from PGE, the first one over 3 days. No wind here when the power was off. Supposedly only 10 days total. Everyone, including grocery stores, lost freezers full of food. Yes, some of them had backup generators; it wasn't enough.

Now, with the Corona virus pandemic, and shelter-in-place/social-distance, almost everything except grocery stores is shut down. Government offices and some businesses/restaurants are curbside pickup. I was glad to hear hardware stores are open, in case of a stopped-up drain. And I need batteries and light bulbs.

Our wonderful local independent radio station is unusually running many already recorded programs, but still keeping us updated on what is happening. And YubaNet, which we usually depend on for weather, fire, election and meetings information, is moderating regular virtual town meetings.

But schools are coping. They are shut, but at least most California districts are trying to get school lunches to kids. And some online, I don't know details. But I know at least 2 community college students who have been homeless, and certainly many more can't do online courses without the library. Over the last few years, this campus has lost the majority of its on-campus courses to online ones, and the computer lab closed several years ago.

The exception was the adult ed OLLI short courses, all I have taken for the last year, which were all in person. But since they were for older students, they were cancelled first thing. And now they are back! The 2 I had wanted to take are not, but a bunch of interesting things are available this semester on Zoom. They put that together in a month...

Old dogs are learning new tricks.

PS. Minimally Photoshopped -- I took out a garbage can.

OK Kelvin, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they? Republished 2/6/2018

Photo taken in February. First published for Feb 28, 2009

My brother is a physics professor, who teaches optics. He said years ago that I couldn't be seeing interference patterns on a macroscopic scale, from light coming through a narrow crack in a door hinge.

Here, the light is coming sideways through a narrow gap between a curtain and window frame. The bands certainly look like interference patterns to me. (When I was an oceanography student, I used to watch the waves reflecting off the sides of the ship canal as I walked to school. They made interference patterns as they crossed. I also knew all the types of wave patterns I could get in a coffee cup from my hand shaking as I walked across the cafeteria.)

This is a South-facing window, and the photo was taken on 2-28-2007. It has been photoshopped only to bring out the best in the image. I think that if the light is coming sideways to the opening, you can get the effect of a very narrow slit.

Or, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they?


The vertical lines are possibly from the vertical bars on the porch railings. Although the railings are less than waist-high; the early morning sun would have to be very low down to cast light through them up to this ceiling. I don't think the sun through the trees could be that low; maybe a reflection off a pan of water?This is early morning light, by the angle, and it comes through a lot of trees, so it is often a focused beam, coming through a narrow gap between the trees, as can be seen sometimes casting wavery light through the old float glass windows. (Pictures previously published.)

Stay Warm

Lassie on heater, probably spring 2011

Doesn't she look grumpy? And she is looking down. I think someone might have been there to dispute the possession of the heater with her.  She is glaring "Don't you push me off!"

This is probably the kittens' first year, spring or early summer 2011. She doesn't have her adult color green eyes yet. And that year they were kept in the bathroom with a heater, separate from Rex. That was the year that they were all on my lap in the chair, and we were enjoying a fire in the woodstove - on June 2nd!

We had a dry December this year - bad news in case we go back to drought conditions without fully recovering from the last one. We haven't had snow yet here, but back east they are having feet of snow in a winter cyclone, and record low temperatures.

I recently asked myself, "what do you do when the power goes off?"

And the answers I immediately came up with:

What do I do when the power goes out?
I get a fire started in the wood stove, (and if it happened today I’d be cursing myself while I cleared away the clutter in front of the stove) and be sure to cook dinner over the stove before dark. And go bring in more firewood before dark. Before it rains. Or snows.
Or dye some fabric, or take a bath, or wash the dishes with the last warm water in the water heater.
Or put extra blankets on the bed, and curl up in the dark and call my mother, whose phone number was the one I knew in the dark.

Seriously. There are lots of things to do to take advantage of/survive the situation. Those with a live-in lover have another option. Why they have lots of births 9 months later in cities.

Those answers are in reverse order, most recent to oldest, of things I have actually done over the years. It depends a little on what time of year, and time of day it is. But the latest wisdom I learned several years ago, when my power was out for more than 3 days.

[That is common enough here that it is necessary to have another source of heat and cooking, and lights, handy for when it happens. The bus driver, a few blocks away, had his power out for 2 separate weeks that year.]

That time, after a couple of days I had used most of the wood I had inside, and was wading through a foot of snow carrying firewood. And the lights I had were not bright enough to see what I was doing if I had to cook dinner after dark.

I learned to bake bread the summer I turned 16, at the cabin in Northern Idaho. In a woodstove. And the little woodstove heaters don't channel heat to the top the way a cookstove does. Much harder to cook over.


The next time the power went out that year, it came on only a few hours later. But by that time I had started a fire, and heated some leftover soup, and was having dinner.


2020 Last October, 2019, PGE turned the power off 6 times -- more than 10 days off total! We all, including grocery stores, lost freezers-full of food. There wasn't any rain all month, some wind -- not necessarily where the power was off. They were doing planned maintenance.

Tablet-weaving / Card-weaving

One of my first learning projects, showing how you can make many patterns with one warp setup.

A new thing I researched and learned last year, and wrote an illustrated how-to paper on. And I really fell in love with it. The weaving process can be simple and quick (a few hours or days for a band). Or it can be very complex and time-consuming. I might not tackle those - my strength has always been to learn a simple technique, and then design complex patterns for it. And I am already doing that.

The technique is ancient (at least Roman, Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 1500BCE at Hallstatt, 1100BCE in Italy are recent discoveries), and related to weaving on the warp-weighted loom (which is at least neolithic in age). The woven bands can be very strong, "camel straps", or 1 cm wide delicate silk strips used for headbands (fillets), or clothing borders, sometimes woven-in. 

My enthusiasm for this is encouraging me to get involved again with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), which I have always considered myself part of the community of, and make some clothing. Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 12th century London. . .

But of course, current retro/boho fashions are also the perfect place to wear these decorative bands. Wish I had run across it back in the day.


One of the things I was doing while I wasn't posting. (While I didn't have internet from home)

Take Time to Read - (but pay attention to the cat)

Take Time to Read - (but don't forget the cat). Terry and I took digital photography together; I got rides home with her. This was the best picture I caught of her. We have nice expressions when we're looking at animals...

Reading is very important to me. This spot in my living room near the window is a good place to read without losing all day.

Because the chair is comfortable  only for a while...

Lassie Came Home August 7, 2014

Lassie on balcony railing. You can see how she might fall off, with the birds going by at eye level.

 (written Aug 29, 2014) (first posted Sept 12, 2014)

She, as it turned out, fell off the balcony, apparently, rather than getting taken off by one of the (now 3!) Great Horned Owls from down the hill. There was some wind, a large branch fell nearby, a drawer that was leaning against the railing fell off, not right below where it was. So she might have made a frightened leap, and she and the drawer fell together.

But Lassie is one of my "kittens". They come running when I call (for food).* I had left them out on the low roof/balcony after dark for the first time, forgetting why I had been so careful to not do that. (The rabbit that I saw the owl killing, before sunset one year, was no smaller than these cats.) It rained some that night. (Yes, rain. August.) When I let them in, she didn't come.

So I called and called. And walked around the house looking, for 2 days. The second night after the evening when she vanished, I was on the balcony, calling. Well, having Siamese cat hysterics, really. Loudly.** And someone said something, somewhere nearby. I asked "who said that?" No one said it again. It didn't seem to be any cat I could see, inside or outside.

But it turns out that Lassie must have found her way up onto the roof right over my head. Because first thing in the morning she found her way in through the high window on the other side of the roof, into the kitchen.

Now, don't you think there is something in the idea of cat names as self-fulfilling disasters? Since it was Lassie , (not Rex or Spot or Grey Mouse) who went off and had an adventure? And came home.


*In fact, a great thundering horde of cat...

**Lisa taught me to speak Siamese long ago. We used to keep in touch that way, going for walks in the woods together. And twice, after she had been missing a long time, she found her way back after I went up on a high place and called, in Siamese cat,"Where are you?" Once we had just moved to a new city, and she had gotten lost. Once, down at the coast, she had been shot. (Hunting chipmunks in the neighbor's garden.) She had to have her shoulder pinned back together.

Siamese cat hysterics, you ask? Speak in Siamese. The same thing that the mama cat says to the kittens when she comes back in and lies down to feed them. Meowwrrrr. With a purr at the end. The same thing that the tomcat says outside the window when he is calling a female to come out and play. MEOWWRRR. Now, louder and deepen your voice. Again, louder and deeper. Stand up straight. Make a megaphone with your hands. Louder and deeper. Let how upset you are show in your voice. Tighten your diaphragm. Put an echoing crack into it at the end of the call. Bounce it off the neighbors house a block away, just to check. And of course, when you do this, all the not-missing cats will stand up and put their paws on your knees, to tell you that they are here. And if they are inside, they will be answering you.

PS Happy Kitten Day, September 7 (The kittens birthday)

Nomad dress ideas

Folkwear #107 Afghani Nomad Dress pattern, using my ideas for Spoonflower "cross-stitch embroidery" fabric designs

 I am thinking of making a Nomad dress from Folkwear pattern #107. Seems like I have always wanted one. But somehow I never noticed this pattern. And here this style is, coming around again.

Back in the day, I would have embroidered  the bodice myself. Today, I am using some of my cross-stitch designs from the '80s to make Spoonflower fabric which I can have printed, and use for parts of the dress.

I'll probably use either fabrics I dye, or lightweight cotton batiks, or both, for most of the dress. Fabric from Spoonflower comes in many weights, but the cross-stitch patterns look best on the linen-cotton canvas, which is heavier than I would use for the whole dress.

To do this version, I need to put those cross-stitch designs on different background colors - I'm thinking of a deep, rich aquamarine which I just tested as a virtual batik. Once I've bought some of the new colors, they will be available for sale too.

Here's a different version, using some of my Decorator Collection coordinates. The bodice and sleeve prints are available for sale now. This one shows the waistband that the pattern has. These vector-drawing patterns can be any size; I'll have to test appropriate sizes for this dress.

Folkwear #107 Nomad dress pattern, another idea using my Decorator collection fabrics at Spoonflower

Sept. 9, 2014 New tjaps today! I captured a couple of my top choices. New virtual embroideries this time, instead of (or in addition to) virtual batiks. Coming soon, with luck. And this time, no chance for the mail carrier to deliver the package to the garbage can so it vanishes!

Empire Inspired Dress Design with my Fabric

Empire-waist dress in Regency Stripe fabric, dark bluegreen

Regency-inspired dresses and fabrics April 2014 (written 4/16/2014)

This spring I was taking a costume history (fashion history) class. And one assignment we had was to design some modern clothing inspired by a historical period.

In the days when I was an active Society for Creative Anachronism member, I designed, drew patterns for, and made 12th century and Renaissance clothes for myself. But for this assignment, I decided to do Empire/Regency inspired designs, since I knew from my long-ago experience that those dresses, if cut right, could be flattering. If not, like the granny dress revival from the 60s, they can look like a sack of potatos tied with a string.

The secret, also mostly not apparently known by the designers of recent empire-waist tops, is that they have to flare from that high waist, not be cut straight.

The fun thing about doing this type of assignment today is the great research possibilities for the historical references. Even the current costume books may have larger color pictures, compared to 20th century ones. But of course, the internet sources are the great difference.

Turns out there are thriving Regency/Jane Austen communities out there, including commercial patterns drawn to re-create real period designs, which have to be worn over period underthings or they won't fit. (No wonder some of the period paintings and drawings, like some by Ingres, don't look right in their proportions. Their stays pushed the bust way, way up.)

But of course, I was doing modern clothes designs, in fact, things I might want to wear myself. And, since my clothes designing has always been fabric-driven, and since textile design is now my passion, first I had to design the fabrics...

Besides some overall prints, I wanted some border prints which might look like embroidery patterns. And I will be making engineered versions which can be placed around curved, flared hems and necklines, as well as straight for on sleeves.

This stripe is not like any period fabric, although maybe it has a little rococo flavor. But I like it on this dress. I designed it smaller, but liked the effect when I stretched it larger to put on the drawing, so I made a larger version of the fabric too. There's a link on the picture to one of the fabric pages at Spoonflower. I will be making one even taller too, and soon this large-scale darker one with a textured background will be available.


**Other versions coming, including border prints which look fairly in period, one based on a vintage copper batik stamp.

And, I'm working on some fabrics to recreate the big surprise I found in my research - shawl dresses in rich colors with deep borders, made from imported Kashmir shawls, or the European copies made in merino wool. Josephine had several. They weren't always wearing those drafty transparent white muslins...

Happy Kitten Day Sept. 7

Little Kitten who will be Rex, October 2010

I can't resist posting this cute picture, from when the kittens were little, now, even though it's not October yet. Written October 8, 2011. First published Friday, May 31, 2013. Moved to Sept. 7, 2013.

I was thinking that Kitten Day (the day the kittens were born), was Oct.7, but when I checked my calendar, they were born in September. But before getting up on the morning of Oct.7, I kept telling Rex "Happy Kitten Day" - and he kept purring, kneading my neck, and putting his nose on my face.

This picture was taken when I was feeding the Little Kitten supplemental kitten formula, when he was just a few weeks old, and not getting enough to eat. After eating his tablespoon or 2 of formula out of a teaspoon, he would climb up on my shoulder and go to sleep.

After a couple of weeks, when he was almost this small, I named him Rex.

King of my heart.

Every day is Happy Kitten Day here.

Sat. Sept. 7, 2013 This morning Rexie had small puffs of spiderwebs decorating both his/her eyebrows. It looked very cute. We had some Happy Kitten Day purring and cuddling.

Bats in the bedroom again… August 8, 2013

Brown bat in bedroom June 26, 2006, 2am close-up. He was about to fly out the window when I flashed in his face. Whoa!

Two nights in a row, Aug. 4th and 5th. First time in several years. Cheesecake and I used to have our bailout protocol all figured out for when there was one circling the bedroom. (Screens are tighter now, usually.)

The first night it was very late, maybe 3:30 or 4 am. I was waked up by the *kittens* bouncing all over me and the bed, chasing it. By the bedside flashlight it looked like a small bat.

Small bat in bedroom, June 26, 2006, 2 am approx

So I grabbed the Spot *kitten*, who was closest, locked her up, then caught the others one at a time, and once they were all locked up, closed the bedroom door to wait for it to settle out.

Once all was quiet, I went back in with the flashlight. Didn't see it. (They usually settle clinging to a screen.) So I opened a window wide and left. By that time it was almost showing some light in the sky. Went to sleep for the rest of the night in a chair.

I had hoped that it had gotten out, but kept the kittens and Buddy locked inside all day, and not in the bedroom. Because in the past I have thought that a bat had gotten away, but as soon as I let the cats out, they found it. (Once  a very small one had crawled under the cat-house on the porch. They were trying to fish it out. Once there was a bat clinging to the shingle siding outside the bedroom. Several times one was still in the bedroom. Once in the torchiere lamp. It couldn't get out. After I had gone back to bed, I heard it skritching. Had to tip it out the window as soon as it was slightly light.)

So the next night, the bat appeared early, maybe 9:30 or 10:00pm. I was still reading, the light was still on, but luckily cats still locked up. It looked like a larger bat this time.

Medium-size black bat in bedroom, June 26, 2006, approx 2am Notice the same calendar is in this picture.

Leave, close door, wait for it to settle, go in and open window, and TURN OUT THE LIGHT. (Very important, otherwise there will be lots of bats in the bedroom, following bugs! See previous post about bats.)
http://wrwcolors.blogspot.com/2006/10/bats-in-bedroom.html

This time, it was so much earlier, I just read in the chair for an hour or two, then went back to bed. Good chance it had escaped, and seems to have done so.

Think I've found where it/they got in — screen pulled loose from frame, and I had left the window open too far so they could easily get in.

I'm sure that this time it wasn't this guy - you can see (there's that calendar again) how much larger he was, and brown not black.

These pictures, from June 26, 2006, when I stood out on the porch roof and took pictures, the time I cleverly opened the window from the outside, thus leaving the light on, show, I think, three different species of bat.

I like my bats a lot. Haven't seen a mosquito for a month. But I prefer them outside, not in the bedroom.

Haven't heard them for a couple of years now. My extra-high-frequency hearing might be gone.  (Never heard them in the bedroom; apparently it's the social calls, not echo-location, which are in human hearing range, sort-of.) 

** The kittens are all grown up, though small, cats. But they still act like kittens. And they're my kittens, especially Rexie. (He thinks so too...)

After the rain

Just after the rain stopped, June 25, 2013, 5:30pm

Rain?! After the rain? No kidding?

Yep. It rained solidly for about 2 days. Not a hard rain, but a steady soaking. Something about a large Arctic low moving the jet-stream, and oceanic tropical moisture. It was a warm storm, just down to the 60s F.

Actually, it often does rain in June here, but not every year. It is more surprising this year because of the warm dry spring we had.

This picture is looking out over the top of the grocery store, between tall trees, from the bus bench across the street, about an hour after the rain stopped on Tuesday. There are houses all around, and under those trees too — but what a lovely view. And the clouds sitting on the tops of the hills.

Today, Wednesday, it was a lovely walk to campus. The air yesterday and today was very soft-feeling, with all the moisture, and warm.

By next Tuesday, the temperature is supposed to be back up to 101 degrees F.

I decided years ago that if it ever didn't look like this here, I wouldn't want to live here anymore.

Serendipity

Self-portrait photo, April 28, 2013

 This picture happened by accident. In the Corel Painter class I was taking this semester, I needed a photo to base a computer-painted self-portrait on. I was probably going to use one taken by a friend in a class last year, but as insurance I went out on the balcony on a sunny afternoon to try to take some side-lit shadowed pictures.

I am very un-photogenic. And I was in front of the camera, not behind it, so I couldn't see what I was getting. The sun was in my eyes. The kittens came by to see what was going on, and got bored and went away. I took lots of pictures, which meant that I had to go through hundreds of desperately ugly pictures to find a few not-so bad ones.

But this one had kind of a nice smile...

I didn't know that the corners of my mouth turned down when I smiled - way beyond my ability to draw.

But I didn't see until I had enlarged it onscreen —  a reflection in my glasses. No wonder I was smiling. Lassie the kitten is reflected there. She was sitting on the railing in the sun. 

The kittens are my darlings, even grown up.


This is minimally photoshopped, in terms of making myself look better, the usual use of Photoshop. I turned down the red sunburn color some. And I photoshopped out the tape holding my glasses together. My usual style of eliminating distractions without materially changing the effect.

In other ways, there is significant photoshopping:

• To make more interesting shadows, I duplicated layers, then set the top one to multiply at a lower opacity.  
• I substituted a virtual batik background for the porch shingles. 
• I made my shirt aqua instead of blue.

I think all that makes a better image.

But that reflection in the glasses — I couldn't have planned that.

It wasn't supposed to snow this month. . . . Friday the 13th at work? (from May15 2011)

Photo May 15, 2011

It hasn't yet this year, but that year it did.

It was Sunday morning, May 15th, that it snowed. This picture is from Monday morning, with patches of snow still, including this South side balcony, and the irises down below it.

But it never pays to count ones irises (before they're hatched). I didn't have a chance to make it to the quilt show either. Or to Empire Mine park to see the irises....

I have a superstition about that, honestly come by. Grandpa used to say "God willing and the creek don't rise."

For many years I have caught the bus to the nearby grocery store, and had 20 minutes to run in, get groceries, and back out to the bus stop before it comes back. (Although with the cutbacks in bus services the last several years, I now have a 15 minute walk uphill with the groceries, instead of  a level walk past 2 houses and down the driveway.)

And I usually say "With luck, I'll catch you on your way back" to let the driver know to look for me. But every time I have said instead "I'll catch you on your way back" I have missed the bus. Every time!


So I try not to assume anything will work out, just hope.

Here's the clouds from Friday the 13th, 2 days before the snow. They mean a storm is on the way in about 2 days, I think.

Why I think of myself as a designer, not an artist - written July 15, 2011

 

Midnight Garden virtual batik - my fabric design at Spoonflower

 

Because one design inspiration gets used many times, in many forms, rather than being a one-of-a-kind artistic piece.

For instance, I did a stylized cat drawing in the '70s as letter paper. Then in the '80s, it became a silver pierced cat pin for my mother, then I did one for myself. Then later a smaller version to have cast, for my sister. Then in about 2002 I drew around it to make a fabric-type design to use in a color-theory class exercise. Just recently I finally scanned that and did a vector drawing, and a couple of different fabric designs at Spoonflower to go with the black-and-white fabric in a previous post. And this week, colored it as a virtual batik as one of several fabrics in a skirt design.

In the fabric above, the flowers are from a batik stamp I bought. It went through a couple of fabric-design versions. Then, for a limited palette contest a few months ago, I did this virtual-batik look with this new repeat. (Not these colors.)

I liked it, but wasn't quite happy with it. Now I know why. The flowers were lonely, They needed butterflies.

(That is, variations in scale, texture, and color. The butterflies, by their orientation, also add an effect of movement to the design.)

The butterflies were inspired by a butterfly picture outline, but I redesigned all the interior lines. I drew them in Photoshop to go with my fabric collection done from antique Japanese fabric stamps. The fine detail goes with the finely carved details in the stamps.

I did this fabric design with butterflies added for another limited-palette contest (although I left out the hot pink and orange and chartreuse). This contest was for butterfly designs. I intended to use several different butterfly drawings, but once I added this one, it was perfect.

And it just got 11th place in the contest!  My record. Lots of other people liked it too.

To see it as fabric, click the link in the title. It should be available for sale soon; I'm ordering a swatch. (2013 - now available.)

Remembering Tigrr (Musketeer) written June 15, 2011 8pm

Tiger (Musketeer) on my jacket - afternoon Dec 10 2009

This is Tiger in Mom's house, after I had come back from a long picture-taking session down at the beach, and a walk.

When she took him from me (1996), I had named him Musketeer, because of his gorgeous Puss-in-Boots coloring. (And he was an exhibit in my list of cat-names-as-self-fulfilling-disasters, since as he grew older he started beating up on everyone.)

I had picked him up (literally) at the feral cat feeding station, behind where I worked, after he'd been there a couple of weeks. Clearly he wasn't wild. Mom had driven down here; I offered him, but she had turned him down. And I was glad, because I was quite fond of him.

But on the day she was leaving, after I had left for work, he jumped up into her arms - and she just took him. Didn't even leave me a note. Took my cat carrier too, although I eventually, years later, got it back.

She sent a couple of pictures of him - all ruffled after the 2-day drive, and calmed down later. And a note written from his point of view.

When I got up to her place in fall 2009, her favorite cat had had to be put down, and Tiger was coming out and sitting on laps and being friendly. He spent a lot of time on her lap at the table, and then on the bed with her. She said "Tiger is trying to help". She also said, looking at her array of pills on the table"I don't know whether I'm supposed to take these pills, or give them to the cat"... Then he started losing weight, and his eyes became totally dilated, but he apparently could still see.

The vets up there and down here did not figure out what was wrong with him, but it may have been a version of the FIP that probably killed Sugar Mouse. It has been amazing that he lasted so long, as skinny as he was. He was eating a can or more of cat food a day, or when he stopped eating that sometimes, baby food.

This week was supposed to be a trip again to Camano, but it got put off. Good thing, because I needed to be here.

Once he stopped being able to walk around, and stopped eating for the last time, I locked the others out on the balcony, put a clean t-shirt on his reflective warm pad on the kitchen floor near the heater, and tried to spend as much time in the chair nearby as I could. School over for the spring, and unemployed. I slept in the chair mostly - and came to really hate that chair. (When I'm tired I get very crabby, and that thing would easily go into an uncomfortable position, but only with great difficulty into a comfortable one - and then it wouldn't stay there.)

He was mostly asleep, but the first several days, he would wake up every couple of hours, and could drink some water put into his mouth with a syringe. Then he slept for over a day, but did wake up one final time and take a little water, the morning of the day he died.

Over all it lasted about 6 days. I wasn't there when he died, but away for a couple of hours.

We should all be so lucky, going quietly and peacefully, in our own home, not thirsty, and with company nearby.